Yesterday I tweeted the following: “It is not good enough to say that you are leaving Buhari simply because he came after you. You stood with him when he detained, insulted, framed up, disgraced, demonised, humiliated and lied about others for 3 years and you cheered him on. You failed to appreciate that those who ride on the back of a tiger always end up in its stomach. Now the tiger is chewing your balls you are wailing. You did not wail when it devoured others. Instead you supported it and enthroned a monster. Kindly ask God and the people to forgive you for your self-induced delusion and folly”.
MELAYE and FANI-KAYODE Even though I did not mention his name but was in fact referring to not just him but all those that are about to decamp from the APC to join the PDP, my dear aburo Senator Dino Melaye, responded to me by tweeting as follows: “My brother FFK and I are both returnee to PDP. He only got healed of political blindness before me. Thank God we both can now see. Once we were blind and now we can see”. When his tweet was brought to my attention I chuckled. I must confess that few have the courage and zeal of Dino and I have always loved him for that. Not many know that we have been friends for over 20 years and till today I remember vividly the first day that I met him and who introduced us. I am overjoyed by the notable strides that he has made in politics over the last 15 years and I am pleased about his return to the ranks and fold of the righteous over the last few days. I am equally pleased that many of his colleagues from the RAPC will soon be joining us and we must welcome them all with open arms. Politics is a game of numbers and this can only be a good thing. We must all join hands to remove the man that has held our nation to ransom and that seeks to devour us all. I am however constrained to say a few things in response to my aburo’s jocular tweet in order to set the record straight. The truth is that unlike him I was never “blind” but I simply let down my guard, closed my eyes for a brief moment and allowed my fleeting anger to becloud my better judgement. Thankfully I opened those eyes relatively quickly and retraced my steps. I saw the evil and immediately I fled from it. Within a short period of time such was the power of the stench of the group of people that I had erroneously aligned myself with for a few months in 2013 that I was compelled to open my eyes and flee the scene. Dino detected the same stench very early on but not only did he choose to hold his nose and stay in that filthy setting but he also opted to assist in putting it in power and enthroning it. The difference between me and him is that I joined the then opposition party in 2013 and stayed there for only 9 months. I left long before it was recognised as a political party by INEC, long before it was named “APC” and long before Buhari became its presidential candidate. Unlike Dino I recognised the evil in them and left them long before they came to power in 2015. Unlike Dino I raised the alarm about their genocidal tendencies, their fascistic disposition, their secret desire to field a Muslim/Muslim ticket and their jihadist agenda. Unlike Dino I fought them to a standstill in the 2015 presidential election by boldly speaking for the PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan. To add to that I have opposed their evil ways and demonic agenda consistently without fear or favour for the last 3 years and my family and I have paid a heavy price for doing so. For the last 3 years I have been one of the leading voices of the opposition in the country so I have paid my dues. It is time for Dino and co. to pay theirs. I acknowledge that Dino and some of the others have suffered in the last few months and shown immense courage by leaving the APC. In many ways they are heroes but they still have to do a lot more and they must show some contrition for enthroning Buhari in 2015 and opposing Jonathan. The truth is that they put us in this mess and an apology for that would go a long way. The biblical prodigal son showed and exhibited some level of contrition and repentance on returning to his fathers house and such a display of such contrition would help in this case. Unlike Dino I told the world that we must stop the APC at all costs from getting power because from what I had seen during my short time with them they would kill people, lock them up, terrorise the nation and abuse that power if they ever got it. I was proved right. Dino and co. saw the evil in the APC and instead of following my lead they stayed there, pitched their tent with them, fought for them, spoke for them, campaigned for them, ensured that they won power and openly supported the evil that they subjected Nigerians to for the last 3 years. In those 3 years many of our people were murdered, demonised, locked up, humiliated, detained, subjected to trumped-up and politically-motivated criminal charges and brutal witchunts, criminalised, misreprsented, threatened, intimidated and demonised. Many were totally destroyed and may never recover. Unlike Dino and those that supported Buhari, brought him to power and have clapped for him for the last 3 years, I do not have blood on my hands and neither can I be blamed for any of the atrocities that he has committed because I opposed him, stood up to him, resisted him and fought him every day for the last 3 years. I cannot say the same for my brother Dino and co. who have only just seen the light because they stayed with Buhari and supported and applauded him for those 3 horrendous years. They turned their back to the light and chose to espouse the darkness. They fought PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan for that entire period and refused to acknowledge our suffering and sacrifice or condemn Buhari for his sectional and divisive politics, his monumental incompetence, and his religious bigotry. Thankfully today they are saying the things that we said before the 2015 election and what we have been saying consistently for the last 3 years. I welcome that but they must never compare themselves with someone like me. We were never in the same boat. I chose the hard and difficult path whilst they did not. I saw the light and fought Buhari long before he came to power whilst they refused to do so. God gave me the grace, fortitude, courage, wisdom, strength and insight to do so and I have opposed Buhari and his party with all my heart and soul from 2014 up until today. I am very proud of that. Unlike them for me it was not about political expedience, political pragmatism or about simply winning elections but about principle and ideological purity. I could not in good conscience stay in a political party with religious bigots, and ethnic supremacists. I do not believe there can be fellowship between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. I do not believe that there can be any friendship or any union betwen the children of God and the children of Belial. Let God judge between those of us that stayed with the evil and those of us that opposed it. Whatever the case I congratulate Dino for seeing the light, albeit 3 years late, and for returning to the fold and the land of the living. As they say, it is better late than never!